My locker was back-to-back with Campy’s. I came in one day with a New York paper and showed Campy the box score. “This says Erskine losing pitcher,” I said. “Shouldn’t it say Campanella losing catcher?” He just smiled and said, “You can always shake me off.” But if you shook off Campy, you had to explain it to Walter Alston, the manager.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

The former New York Mets general manager left his job as senior vice president of the San Diego Padres on Thursday to become a special adviser to Major League Baseball Players Association head Tony Clark.

Minaya will focus on international affairs and game development in the U.S., including amateur ball. The number of Dominican and Cuban players in the major leagues has increased, and management hopes to get agreement on an international draft in the collective bargaining agreement that ...

Finally, with regard to defense, I’ve made no attempt even to estimate something along the lines of runs saved. Instead, I’ve utilized only a rough approximation of each player’s positional adjustment — which figures one can derive (following the application of some minor arithmetic) from the Steamer projections available at the site.

Having first calculated and then found the sum of those first three figures (i.e. Bat, BsR, and Def), I then also added the replacement-run total [(PA / ...

I’ve really liked the improvements BP has made to their annuals and web site over the last few years. For example, in the past you didn’t know who was responsible for the team essays and player comments. Now, they make it clear. It might be a small thing for you, but it makes a real difference for me.

Three new major leagues, technically so, will greet the playing season of 1915. That was the outlook today with the announcement that the draft rule will be lifted from the American association. Letting down the bars for the association will necessitate doing likewise for the International league and the Pacific coast loop, and then Organized Baseball will have shot its latest and strongest 42-sentimeter [sic] projectile at the Federals.
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[National League] ...

6. Len Koenecke, 1932 New York Giants schedule postcard: Len Koenecke didn’t make the majors until he was 28, didn’t even start playing minor league baseball until he was 24, and he died before he could make up for the lost time.

His death, which came just 265 games into his big league career, may rank as most bizarre in baseball history. Two days after being released by the Brooklyn Dodgers in September 1935, Koenecke got into an altercation with a pilot during a flight. The pilot hit ...

They don’t need a big clock. They need umpires to enforce the rules already in place. Such a change wouldn’t require negotiation with the union. Such a change wouldn’t generate another distracting clock on my TV screen or at the ball park. Yet, it would accomplish the goal.

Baseball is a great game. It doesn’t need radical overhauls to stay popular. It just needs to be tweaked to keep the action moving and to help it fit into our busy lifestyles.

Jeff Sullivan breaks down Carlos Carrasco emergence as a quality starter last season.

The problem with mechanical fixes is they can be kind of like momentum: they’re only as good as the next day’s game. Ubaldo Jimenez looked like he was fixed, until he wasn’t fixed anymore. On the other hand, that’s one example, and unlike Carlos Carrasco, Jimenez no longer has Mickey Callaway as a coach. Probably, Carrasco isn’t going to be as good as Clayton Kershaw and Felix Hernandez going forward. ...

Here’s a cheap, handy tool for draft prep for dynasty league players. This site provides a spreadsheet with a compilation of all the top prospect lists in one Excel workbook for $3.99. I usually do this myself. This will save me a lot of time this year.

I would think it would take a few years for teams and hitters to evolve. For me, a little less offense isn’t really an issue. Game time is a bigger issue. Get the time back down to 2.5 hours and I’ll be happy.

Baseball already is kicking around ways to improve the game under new Commissioner Rob Manfred, but some ideas are just too radical, not to mention premature. Take the elimination of defensive shifts. Manfred raised that idea as a radical possibility in an interview with ESPN last Sunday, ...

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Take it from Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy, who sees the data work against him at the plate and for him behind it.
“I think [the shift] is a tough thing to blame for the decline in offense,” he said in a text. “ERAs are down [0.12 points between 2013 and ‘14 and 0.72 points over the past decade], so that means pitching is better. Why is pitching better? The wealth of information we have when calling games is a very large amount. If they wanted to ...

During the 2014 AL Wild Card Game against the Oakland A’s, the Royals were up 3-2 going into the sixth inning. Starting pitcher James Shields gave up a lead-off single to Sam Fuld and then walked Josh Donaldson. With runners on first and second and nobody out, Ventura was brought in to face Brandon Moss….

Ventura had faced three batters, given up two hits, allowed two earned runs and finished his one-third of an inning with a postseason ERA of 54.00. According to Star columnist Vahe ...

The holdup is that MLB won’t let Moncada—or any Cuban player, for that matter—use the general license any more. That wasn’t always the case. Yasiel Puig, for example, signed using the general license. It’s not clear what exactly changed, but at some point in 2012 after Puig signed in June that year, MLB no longer allowed Cuban players to sign using the general license and instead required them to apply for the specific license, which is a written document from OFAC. That ...

Catcher Matt Wieters revealed that he expanded the distance on his throws yesterday to 150 feet. He had been playing catch at 120.

The rehab’s going well and going how it’s supposed to from all the talk I’ve gotten with Dr. (James) Andrews and my physical therapist down here and Richie (Bancells),” Wieters said. “Everything’s kind of moved along and we’re preparing for me to be ready for opening day. We still have a good couple of months before we’re there, so it’s still going to be a lot of ...

Even more dangerous to the life and well being of the national pastime than the Federal, organized baseball and the warring magnates, is the European war. So declares Curtis Guild, former United States minister to Russia. He remarks if trade with the czar’s kingdom is not continued there will be no more baseball. Here’s why, according to Guild: “The only leather which will not stretch under sudden impact comes from the hides of Siberian ponies.”